Mincemeat Pie Recipe, Whats Cooking America (2024)

FAQs

What are mince pies called in America? ›

A mince pie (also mincemeat pie in North America, and fruit mince pie in Australia and New Zealand) is a sweet pie of English origin filled with mincemeat, being a mixture of fruit, spices and suet. The pies are traditionally served during the Christmas season in much of the English-speaking world.

Mincemeat is a mixture of chopped dried fruit, distilled spirits and spices, and often beef suet, usually used as a pie or pastry filling. Mincemeat formerly contained meat, notably beef or venison. Many modern recipes replace the suet with vegetable shortening.

After knights returning from the Crusades came back with spices in-tow, they became common ingredients of the dish along with minced bits of meat (from a range of animals), suet, apples, sugar, raisins, and molasses. "They were about 30 to 50 percent meat in the late Tudor era," says food historian Annie Gray, Ph. D.

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Mince pies may have disappeared from the American table, but England, the ancestral home of the mince pie, is still mince pie nation, especially at holiday time. The same goes for its expats, too.

Mincemeat is a combination of dried chopped fruits, warm spices (like cinnamon and nutmeg), sugar, nuts, distilled spirits — and traditionally, meat. So yes, mutton or beef is an integral element of the most traditional iterations of this English dish.

Mince pies have been known under several names over the years. Christmas pyes indicate their popularity at this time of year, shrid pies refer to the shredded suet and meat, crib cakes which allude to baby Jesus in his crib, and wayfarer's pies, as they were a traditional treat served to travelling visitors.

The mince pie was originally filled with meat but it's believed that it wasn't until the late Victorian period and the early 20th century that mince pies shifted to a pie made from fruit fillings. Is it still illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas day?

It's a rare American I've bumped into who likes Christmas cake or Christmas pudding. Even rarer is one who likes mince pies. But in England, Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without mince pies. We eat dozens of them in December (and only in December.

The name is a carryover from 15th century England when mincemeat did indeed have meat in the mix; in fact, the whole point of mincemeat was to preserve meat with sugar and alcohol. Mincemeat pies became a status symbol because meat and fruit were expensive.

Why is mincemeat so expensive? ›

Mincemeat isn't difficult to make, but it has a lot of ingredients, which can make it expensive to produce in small batches, and it requires at least a day's advance planning to let the ingredients sit.

They became a popular treat around the festive period thanks to a tradition from the middle ages, which saw people eat a mince pie for 12 days from Christmas day to Twelfth Night. Doing this was believed to bring you happiness for the next 12 months.

The Kirkland signature mince pies from Costco.

None Such Mincemeat has seasonal distribution throughout the United States. If you cannot find None Such Mincemeat in your grocery store, please notify the store manager.

Ingredients: Water, Corn Syrup, Raisins, Dried Apples, Molasses, Corn Starch Modified, Distilled Vinegar, Dried Orange And Lemon Peel, Salt, Spices, Beef, Fruit Pectin, Natural Flavor.

We all love munching on mince pies but have you ever wondered why their filling is called 'mincemeat' even though there's no meat in it? This is because long ago mince pies actually did have meat in them. They went by different names like 'mutton pie,' 'shrid pie,' or 'Christmas pie. '

Mince pies = eyes

This is a term used widely in London even to this day, usually to describe a girl's features. Her eyes would be described as Minces, an even more slang term from the original mince pies.

Mince pie is fruit based and mince meat, while meat pie is vegetable and mince meat.